Twenty teams kicked off in the English Premier League’s 22nd season last weekend, but only a handful of them have a realistic chance of finishing on top of the pile next May. The reason? In a league without a salary cap, some clubs have piles of Russian / American / Emarati cash to spend on players. Others get headlines like this.

These mechanisms appear intended to prevent teams from going out of business rather than produce competitive parity; if they end up doing a little of both, that would be just fine with UEFA – and many might share UEFA’s feelings, given the strong correlation between wage spending and accumulation of premiership points in the EPL. Continue reading →